With this book’s forty-four chronologically arranged poems, Brodsky
captures significant occasions (his wedding anniversary, the death of
a friend, Nixon’s resignation) as well as simple details from his
daily life (business trips, meals at small-town diners, moments spent
watching trains fly past crossing gates as they race to imagination’s
destination), all the while analyzing the relevance of his own existence
in relation to these events.

Mine is the spirit's fluid, the will
That drives toward the sun exploding
And climbs inside the soul in flight
From a dying husk. I am freedom
Measured by breath immeasurable.
My blood rushes as spasmodically as day
Confused by one hundred tornadoes
Funneling through a solitary eye.
Night is blighted by fires
Hell-born and -fed. Lucifer stalks
My mind with fine wine-nets,
Anxious to recapture a free agent
Recently set loose, convinced
Of my susceptibility to weakness.
Doubts about escaping the serpent
And his bite frighten me almost to death.
Yet as the moon comes into view,
I see you, wife, shadowed, subdued,
Racing to take me into the rain
To wash sin away so that, together,
We might bathe naked in our marriage forever.